Author : Fania.

Fandom : Saint Seiya.

Characters: Aphrodite and Shaka.

Disclaimer : They run too fast! I can't catch them! *Darts after Aphro*

Note : Man, that took longer than planned! I had originally intended to do the Hair-cutting and Tatooing things only, but then as I got to writing their dialogs toward the end, some new issues popped in, and I figured they should be addressed in this chapter… hence the heart to heart talk in the middle of the chapters… which makes it much longer than the previous ones xD

Quick word to the reviewers:

Well, no review, no answer x)

07 Mutual Toleration

"We're entering Italy tomorrow."

Aphrodite sat closer than usual to Shaka, his voice low and lifeless, his usual cheerful spirit gone.

"That's a pity, he sighed, I liked ancient Greece."

There was a faint, melancholic tone in Aphrodite's voice, and Shaka wasn't sure if it ought to be put down to their leaving Greece –well, what would later become Greece as they knew it, to be exact- or if he was simply missing his 'friends'. The year was 1743, and in the time Aphrodite and Shaka had spent sharing a tent in the nomad camp, the Virgo Saint had –despite himself, of course- gotten to know his comrade of misfortune better. He knew, by now, how to read Aphrodite's voice and words to deduce what kind of mood he was in at the moment, at least in most cases. There were still moments, though, when Shaka could not know for sure.

Aphrodite had never mentioned either of his fellow traitors' names, not even at night, when they were alone and no one could hear them whisper to each other. In fact, after the first few days, he had even stopped evoking the fact that they had cosmoses, or that they were Gold Saints, as though he wanted to forget it entirely, to get rid of the memory. Right from the beginning, he had dived into the nomads' lives, drowning in their work, their tongue, their clothes, even going so far as to burn the clothes he had worn on their first days in this time, while Shaka had devotedly kept his. They weren't much –a faded pair of jeans and a plain white T-Shirt so that his cloth wouldn't cut at his skin- but still. They were part of him, and the only material memory Shaka had allowed himself to keep. Aphrodite had had his hair for this purpose… for a while.

"So, what is it?"

There was a surprised silence as Aphrodite came to term with the fact Shaka had just spontaneously addressed him, and the Virgo Saint inwardly sighed. The Swedish man had been silent for the whole evening meal, not even trying to pretend he was mildly amused by the playful banters occurring between the chief and his son, and as loathe as Shaka was to admit it, it set him on edge.

He had had to get used to a lot of things during their first three months in the camp, learn to consider a new routine, a new normal, and strangely enough, Aphrodite's endless string of words during the meals –whether they were addressed to the Hindu or not- had become part of that routine. Shaka had gotten used to gauge the camp's mood and political movement by the sound of their voices –there was a particular edge to the chief's laugh when he was being careful, a high-pitched thrill when Aphrodite joked off yet another question about the strange language he and Shaka spoke in. Without Aphrodite's voice among the others, the night felt weirdly empty and cold, just as it had felt in the first weeks, when Shaka still missed the familiar comfort of his fellow Saints' cosmoses. Aphrodite's voice had, surprisingly enough, come to replace this feeling, and the lack of it was unnerving, at best.

"I know there is something bothering you," Shaka insisted when no answer came after the first full minute. "What is it?"

"Why do you care?" Came the surprised remark.

"Your bad mood is spreading to them. Bad feelings prevent me from meditating properly."

There was a derisive chuckle, followed by a long silence. Then, just as Shaka was about to start talking again, he heard Aphrodite take a deep breath, and then…

"I had my hair cut."

Shaka's eyes snapped open on their own, and he was met by the very strange vision of a short-haired Aphrodite. He had lost a bit of weight, but gained in muscles, and his skin was much less white than it had been, tanned by the long hours Aphrodite spent outside. He wore a simple pair of short legged trousers and a plain white shirt with leather laces. His hair, no longer the opulent azure mane Shaka had had a glimpse of once or twice in his life, but a short halo of thin curls framing his face, which reminded Shaka of a Cherub painting he'd seen long before, in Camus' office.

"It looked horrible." Aphrodite explained, shifting under Shaka's bemused gaze, and the Virgo Saint finally thought of closing his mouth. "What with the sun and the fading dye. So I had it cut at where it looked good. Besides, I'd have had to cut it eventually, because Egidio –the one who sounds like he's barking when he laughs- is going to teach me acrobatics –says I'm the perfect built to be lifted and lift others alternatively, so it's good- but you can't do acrobatics with hair so long –it'd get in your eyes and be dangerous- so anyway I've just done is a bit earlier than necessary… and it's better this way, anyway, because it's scorching hot here, and draperies aren't as cooling as marble and…."

"Aphrodite, you're babbling again."

"Well, stop staring at me and I'll stop babbling!"

Aphrodite's cheeks went a shade darker, and Shaka realized he hadn't closed his eyes back. He quickly did so, and not too soon, judging by the footsteps he heard approaching immediately after his eyelids were shut.

Aphrodite didn't wait for Shaka's advice on Italy before he left their tent and went back to the usual bustle of departure. The Virgo Saint, as had become his customary task grabbed their sparse belongings and went out of the tent, waiting while Aphrodite helped the nomads unmake the tents and pack them up. Later on this day, as they had been walking alongside each other for four hours without a word from the Pisces Saint, Shaka decided he had had enough, and whispered:

"Why haven't you talked all day?"

"It doesn't matter."

"You never stop talking, Aphrodite. Even in your sleep you're unable of shutting your mouth completely. What's wrong?"

"Nothing it's just…."

"What?"

"I miss my friends."

Shaka refrained from snorting. Friends? What friends? Shura and Death Mask? Please! Those two men didn't know the meaning of feelings. One of them killed children for fun, the other had willingly assassinated the man he had claimed to be his friend, without so much as a twitch in his eyes! As for Aphrodite… well, maybe he thought he was capable of understanding the meaning of the word 'friends' but obviously he'd picked up a deformed definition.

"You'll see them again." Shaka said with the tone of someone commenting the weather.

"Oh shut up." Aphrodite sighed. "You don't even think they're my friends."

"Colleagues, at best. Just because you were foolish enough to stand up to Death Ma—"

"Anchise." Aphrodite cut in. "His name is Anchise."

"So he did give you his real name?" Shaka arched an elegant eyebrow, deeply shaken by this revelation. "I thought it was but a rumor when the twins told me about it."

It was Aphrodite's turn to snort, but he didn't try to pretend it didn't happen.

"Yeah right. The twins."

"Well… yes, the twins." Despite himself, Shaka let his face express his surprise and confusion, just this once. "What do you have against them?"

"Against them I have nothing," Aphrodite spat. "Saga was sick, and Kanon's choices were driven by despair –I'd probably have acted the same if my own brother had trapped me in a cave for my whole life. It's the rest of you I can't stand."

"Us?"

"Yes, you. And don't give me your surprised lip-twitching, it doesn't work on me. Did you really expect me to respect a bunch of stuck up hypocrites?"

"Aphrodite, I don't allow you to…."

"To what? Point out you aren't as pure as you all pretend to be? I'm sick and tired of the lot of you looking at us like we're some sort of excrement soiling your boots! You keep saying it's because we were traitors, but it's false! You've always put us aside! Even when we were kids, you never liked us, because I looked like a girl, Anchise has white hair and Shura forbade Milo to harm me during our first days in!" Aphrodite's voice was rising in volume, something Shaka had only ever heard happening when he did screaming matches with Death Mask… but even then, his voice had never held the cutting edge it now contained. "Did any of you ever stop to consider how it felt to be cast aside by those who should have been our family? What do you think went on through our heads when Saga ordered us to help him change the world? Do you think I agreed because I was a sadistic monster? Well, if you think that, you're wrong! Because the only reason I helped him, the only thing that got me in, was because I thought it was the only way I'd ever have a chance of feeling normal!"

People around them were stopping walking, staring at them and desperately trying to understand what Aphrodite was shouting at Shaka's face. The Virgo Saint could feel it, just as he could feel Aphrodite's tense body and the thin, almost imperceptible trace of angry cosmos it exuded.

"Nobody liked us, nobody tried to befriend us… we felt lonely! We felt lonely, but we were too proud to admit it, and we didn't even know where to start! Needing someone is a weakness, that's what we've all been taught during our trainings, how did you expect us to tell anyone we needed to stop being on our own? We were fourteen and we were jealous! Jealous of you lot who seemed to be friends, who never got a single weird glance, or insult, or random attack thrown at you, because we did get those! We wanted a world where we could fit in, and the only one who was able to bring us that was Saga, that is why Shura followed him in the first place! He thought it was unfair Anchise and I should be cast aside because of the way we looked! And believe it or not, Shura is my friend, and I was certainly not about to leave him get into this alone! So I followed Saga's order, because I wanted a new order of things too, and so did Anchise! We were young, and alone, and stupid, and I won't deny we were wrong, I won't deny we created an awful lot of chaos and all that, but I also won't accept that you guys keep calling us the traitors!"

"Well, you did come back as Spectres!" Shaka snapped. "We all saw you wearing those dark cloths!"

"Because there was no other way to get back into the fight!" Aphrodite's voice was getting raw from screaming, and Shaka could hear the wet touch of tears in his tone. "We took these cloths because it was our only chance to try and help you stop Hades! And I know you'll tell me we used the Athena Exclamation, but there was more than the three of us! Camus helped us, and Saga as well! Why don't you guys resent them too? Or is it indispensable to be friend with Milo to be forgiven? And Aioros, the bastard! He keeps acting all pure and mighty, ha! He didn't even try to understand Shura when they were supposedly friends before Saga ordered for his death! As for the Twins! I understand why Saga deserves a better treatment than us, what he did wasn't his fault, but Kanon knew he was wrong! He knew what he was doing and he still did it! So why does he just have to say 'I'm sorry' for everyone to welcome him with open arms, and we can't even get a 'good morning' once in a while when Shion himself said we should be forgiven as well? You're a bunch of heartless bastards, that's what you are! You keep pushing us away, assuming we're not worth helping or talking to without even trying to get to know us! No wonder why we were so keen on getting rid of you lot! Even now, three years after we've been stuck in the past, you're still not trying to understand me! I've tried, you know! I've honestly tried to talk to you, to be as friendly as I could, and yet, here's my reward, you only talk to me when my silence is getting on your nerve! It's always the same with you, always 'me, me, me, mememememememememememe!' no wonder why everyone in the camp hates you! You're a stuck up moron!"

Shaka could feel his cosmos boiling in his veins, angry and vexed. He thought of throwing his fist to Aphrodite's face –they were both so angry, they couldn't completely hide their cosmoses anymore, and the other saint's position was as obvious to him as it would have been with his eyes open. He could feel the nomads gaze on them, however, and a quick search with his cosmos forced him to acknowledge the truth behind at least part of Aphrodite's words: they mostly longed to throw him away and abandon him to his fate. It was very likely that the Pisces Saint had been the one preventing them from doing so, and Shaka deemed it safer not to show how far their disagreement went. Breathing deeply, he clenched and unclenched his fists, struggling to get his cosmos back under control. After a while, everyone started moving again, and he thought they were back on the road, until someone roughly shoved him aside, and the custom barked orders signaled him that they were setting camp here until next morning.

Shaka sighed deeply, sat down on a stone and pretended to go in meditation.

0oOo0

To be completely fair, Shaka was impressed at Aphrodite's stubbornness. Usually, the Pisces saint was incapable of keeping silent more than ten minutes in a row, for he seemed to have a need to be always talking –whatever the reason behind it. Shaka had thought he would simply ignore him, but remain the same with the others… he hadn't uttered a single sound all day.

As for the Virgo saint, he had had all the time in the world to ponder what he had been told, and the results weren't joyful. He still couldn't believe it was exclusively the Gold Saints' fault Aphrodite and the two others had chosen to follow Saga despite their knowing he wasn't the rightful Pope, but he admitted, at least, that their being excluded while Saga and Kanon were now a part of the group was neither logical, nor fair. Not only that, but he was also capable of seeing that his attitude toward Aphrodite had been more than improper. All feeling business cast aside, his master had always taught him that debts had to be paid, and judging by what he'd felt that morning, Shaka owed Aphrodite for protecting his physical integrity during those three years… therefore, he had come to the conclusion that he must somehow repay it, and he had endeavored to prepare himself to it.

It was well into the night when Aphrodite finally entered their tent, which he had carefully avoided all day. He paced heavily to his thin couch and discarded his shirt, before he finally noticed a change in his surroundings.

"You're missing brace—why are your eyes open?"

"What I want to do is better done with eyes open."

"And what, exactly, do you want to do?" Aphrodite asked carefully.

"Sit down, and I'll show you."

Aphrodite reluctantly sat down, and Shaka grabbed his left wrist, securely sitting it in his lap, and began cleaning it with a tissue imbibed with wine. They sat in silence for a few moments, before Aphrodite spoke again:

"That doesn't tell me why you're missing… three bracelets."

"Well, as you mentioned this morning, they don't really like me. It is only logical they wouldn't lend me something without payment."

"But… how did you manage to ask them anything?"

"Well, I've been forced to listen to them for the past three years… I managed to grasp a little of their Greek. Add a lot of pointing and grunting, and there you are."

"And what exactly did they lend you?

"Is this an enquiry?"

"I'm only trying to guess what you're doing."

Shaka kept a blank face as he retrieved a bottle of ink and a set of small knives from a cushion beside him. He made sure the blades were as clean as possible, then poured a small quantity of ink into a cup, which he placed on the ground beside him before he answered:

"When I was young, in Benares, there were men who did this all over their backs… they used to get tigers, so that it would give them strength."

While he spoke, the Virgo saint had grabbed a knife and, holding Aphrodite's wrist in place, he cut through the skin, to form the traditional symbol of the Cancer house, two curved lines facing each other figuring a crab's body, and two circles standing for its eyes. Though Aphrodite didn't look like he enjoyed the sensation, he didn't move the slightest bit, and Shaka poured ink in the fresh wound, making sure it covered every part of it. Then, with the same knife, he traced the complex sign standing for the Capricorn constellation, and filled it with ink before wrapping the Pisces' wrist in bandages.

"Keep it on for a few days. If it goes well, the symbols should stay forever." There was an uncomfortable silence, which Shaka broke uneasily: "After all, the names are part of a person, or so they say."

"Well… thank you." Aphrodite murmured at last. Then, after a pause, he added: "Maybe you're not as heartless as I implied."

Shaka took time to engrave the Pisces' blushing face in his memory before he turned to hide his smirk and closed his eyes again. They still weren't friends, but at least, they had finally taken a first step toward mutual toleration.

NB: The Tattoo technique Shaka uses is taken from the book Papillon (adapted into a movie with Steeve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman) which is the Autobiography of a French man condemned to go to a bagne (very harsh prison) in Cayenne (Guyanna) for his whole life. At one point in the book, he uses this technique to tattoo a south-american Indian man. You should read this book (or see the film) if you come across it, for it is a very interesting testimony on what France could impose upon its citizen a few decades back.